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NeoGAF Drawing-a-Day Thread

DEATH™;152512043 said:
Easily my top priority.

I already got Sycra, Proko, Jazza, ConceptCookie and Cubebrush on the Web Resources List. I honestly try to avoid DA unless its a short concise topic.

I'd recoomend addubg Mark Crilley's stuff from his youtube channel, I know he does manga more often than anything but he also has videos about fundamentals and such.
 
Just joining this thread now! Didn't know there were so many good artists on GAF.

My boyfriend wanted an icon, so I drew this for him today:


(You can watch it drawn here!)
 
This actually isn't finished yet but I spent far more than 10 minutes so it counts as one for the day, right? Right?
inb4 Nope

WIP

snacks_wip_by_mrunfortunate-d8ihp9g.png


I feel like the three people in the background are too small...
 
I feel like the three people in the background are too small...

Actually the background and those 3 people look good, the 2 characters in the foreground are what feels out of place. Could just be me though, the artstyle looks a bit different on those 2 versus the background 3.
 
Please give me feedback on the OP structure, and I also need some more material especially for the specialized stuff... Let me know too if I have stated wrong facts lol.

Also help me with establishing thread rules especially on links regarding NSFW stuff... I don't want people getting banned and stuff because of this...

Traditional + Digital Art Self Study |OT| Wanna Start Art?

Introduction:

Welcome to the NeoGAF Art Tutorials Thread! If you are going in this thread, we hope that at least we help you inspire to take up art, either as a hobby or as a profession! I will tell you now, it will take time to learn the skills needed, but it’s worth it, even as a hobby! But even with that, our goal is to provide you the necessary nudges in the right direction to learn quicker and see immediate results.

Just to take note, this OP will be continually updated with more helpful resources, corrections or things to add on as we continually level up as artists ourselves. As an artist, we have to have a thirst for continuous knowledge and improvement, and we want you to have the same attitude too!

Thread Objectives:

We hope in this thread, we continually provide you with:

1. Introduction you to the Art Supplies you might need.
2. Introduce Art Fundamentals and Roadmaps in a structured way, enabling you to self study.
3. Refer you to Tutorials/Books/Classes/References/Etc that will help you in a particular material
4. Help you get through Art Block
5. Encourage one another!
6. Maybe, just maybe, befriend someone in the art/videogame industry and land a job! (And if necessary, help you of building portfolios, after all, we're on GAF).

So let’s get started!

I. Basics and Art Materials

A. Talent?

First of all, let me address this myth… Being good at art IS NOT TALENT!

Being able to draw is relatively the same as learning to write, or playing a musical instrument, or even being good at games, in a sense that it’s something that you have to practice and sharpen. Drawing IS A SKILL, and you can only be as good as the amount of time you put at it learning and doing.

"But why does other people grasp it quicker than me?" you ask. It’s because some people already develop those foundational knowledge and skills even before they are drawing. What I mean is those people have understanding of many concepts like how light works, how shapes works and many other things. It just happen that they want to apply things they already know and understood on the canvas. They are already started learning before they realized. In a sense, they really started waaay earlier than you think lol.

This shouldn’t discourage you, because those knowledge and skill can be acquired by you too! When knowledge is partnered with work ethic, you can see immediate results that will surprise yourself! Yes it can be tough on the road but the rewards is enormous that you open a new world of possibilities.

So yes, do not worry about having that talent or not. What you just need to keep in mind throughout learning art (or even about learning anything) is knowledge and willpower should go hand in hand. It will be hard to improve (it’s even counterproductive) to draw and draw and draw countlessly without any knowledge, direction or guidance. At the same time it’s also as equally as bad to just read stuff without practicing.

B. Traditional Drawing Tools and Skills

Now to get started. To draw, you actually need your tools (hur). What’s good thing about it is to start traditionally, you do not really need to buy expensive tools (yet). Getting your regular #2 (HB) pencils, paper and eraser can do the job. But let me tell you this now that you can be limited at times. It doesn’t mean that you can buy your way to improvement, it just means that there are times that some tools will help you do some things faster/more efficient.

Personally, I would recommend buying first a kneaded eraser. Not only this eraser is cheap, it also last waaaay long and you can shape it to whatever you like. This will be handy when erasing small details. At the price, it’s a must.

The other drawing tools IMO are optional, like straightedges, circle/ellipse templates, sweeps, compasses, and equal spacing divider. Most of these things seemed really essential, but it’s waaaaay more important to develop the skill of DRAWING USING YOUR ELBOWS AND SHOULDERS
than to rely on these tools every time. Through practice, you can draw straight lines, organic curve lines, and perfect circles and ellipses if you get the habit of using you elbows and shoulders instead of your wrists. This is one of the most important foundational skills to have and you will use it from drawing, for both traditional and digital.

Other Helpful Links About Supplies:

Proko
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_W9sZ8S7RM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoyaGaFajSU


C. Notes about Digital

Now if you have some money to spare, you might be thinking about going digital. After all, digital have apparently larger potential than drawing things traditionally. I will not deny that, but first you need to take note that even if the tools are way more powerful, it doesn’t make you a better artist. You might be surprised that digital drawing can be just as frustrating to learn at times. Not only that it feels like using a completely different medium that require different sets of skills, but you also have to develop different hand-eye coordination since when you draw, you are looking at the monitor instead of the tablet itself.

I’m not discouraging going to digital, I’m just saying you will also need to practice to get better at it. This is why many modern artists still teach traditional because you still need those basic fundamentals with you, so if whenever you want to go to digital, you already have the things you mostly need. You can still invest on your drawing tablet, just don’t forget to buy your sketchbook too!

Now, if you are really going for digital, here’s a Deviantart Guide to buying a Wacom Tablet . I personally recommend Intuos Pro Medium for starters. Not only it forces me to learn because of the price :P, but it’s big enough for me to still draw using my elbow. Not only that, it saves money in the long run since it’s a quality high end tablet, saving me money for future upgrades.

For software, Photoshop and Painter are always a given, especially Painter, as its brushes are more powerful and more organic, making the transition to digital easier, and the color triangle, which IMO is something that any digital painting software should have. Photoshop is used more for editing and special effects.

When starting, what you need to take note that is very important is:

1. Calibrating your tablet. You want your tablet to be scale to real proportions as possible. One way to check is to put a circle-shaped object in your tablet and trace over it. If it draws a perfect circle, you're good.

2. Keep your workspace as similar as when you are drawing traditionally. You want to transfer as much muscle memory and skill you earned drawing traditionally to digital drawing to make it easier to transition.

These 2 are very important because you want the skills and muscle memory you gained from drawing traditionally to transfer directly to digital. These will ensure that you will have the most smooth transition you can have.

II. Building your Knowledge

Now, you have your tools ready, let’s get drawing! Now where do we start?

First, before we start drawing, let’s lay out a checklist of what to learn. Almost all of these topics are used on every division of art, no matter what medium you are using. As long as you know these fundamental knowledge, it’s just a matter of practicing the skill needed for the given medium that you have. All of these topics are so broad that it will feel like you need to take a semester or two to learn them all, and a lifetime to put them on practice. I won’t lie, it’s probably true.

As ArtGerm told us, we should treat art as a lifestyle. Whether you are doing art as a hobby or for living, we should always be committed to it. But at the same time, once you have it, you have it for life! It’s not gonna go away from you.

So if it gets intimidating, don’t worry, take it one small step at a time. You cannot eat a whole elephant in one sitting. Nor learn to play an instrument overnight. Be patient young one.

A. Some Math and Physics Stuff!

First of all, we need to remember that our goal when drawing or painting is to put a 3D object into a 2D surface. A 2D plane do not have depth as a dimension, so we have to make the ILLUSION OF DEPTH in our drawings.

To understand and apply these, we need to learn some concepts that can be mathematically and physically involved. But even with that, don’t be scared. Math is everyone’s best friend. Forget the suffering you have on your geometry teacher teaching you stuff that seems like it doesn’t apply. Well, I said forget the suffering, not the topic itself lol. We will use those concepts and apply them in art! Keep using them as guides until the concept is well ingrained to a point that you can eyeball them!

P.S. if you are a bit well versed in Math, you can use these concepts with the numbers involved and make easy shortcuts and workflow in digital art!

1. Perspective

Perspective Drawing is created to make the illusion of depth using shape manipulation. It uses this basic concept that EVERYTHING THAT IS CLOSER LOOKS BIGGER and EVERYTHING THAT IS FARTHER LOOKS SMALLER. Pretty basic concept, but the applications of it booms out into a bigger subject. Understanding them gives you massive perks later on when you draw the figure especially when you deal with foreshortening.

Expected Topics include:

Rectilinear: 1,2 and 3 Point Perspective
Creating 3D Shapes on Perspective
Curvilinear Perspective

Recommended Books and Resources:

Sucessful Drawing

How to Draw


2. Color Theory

Along with perspective, we also manipulate color to make illusion of depth. But before we utilize color, we need to understand color itself. First, there are 3 primary dimensions of color. Hue, Value/Lightness/Luminousity and Chroma. There are also Relative Brightness and Saturation, which is completely different than Lightness and Chroma color space wise but it is up to you to study the difference lol.

What’s important about seeing color as a colorspace/function of 3 variables is that you can use them to give illusion of depth via form principle and athmospheric perspective. Form principle is the concept of a OBJECT GETTING BRIGHTER WHEN LIT AND DARKER WHEN ON SHADOW, and Athmospheric Perspective is the idea of a OBJECT’S COLOR LOSING SATURATION AND SHIFTING HUES WITH DISTANCE AND LIGHT INVOLVED.

When starting, there will be much emphasis on Form Principle, as you will learn later, proper values will have a more impactful effect on your drawings compared to color.

Expected Topics Include:

Color Spaces
Form Principle
Additive and Subtractive Coloring
Color “Key”
Athmospheric Perspective
Subsurface Scattering
Contrast
many more!


Recommended Books and Resources:

Color and Light

How to Render

huevaluechroma.com

B. The Human Figure

I can safely assume that most of us who want to learn how to draw started because we want to draw a particular character/s. So we will help you do that! Drawing the Human Figure can look intimidating, but with the right knowledge and obtained skill as a foundation, it can be done by anyone, including you!

1. Portrait Drawing (Drawing the Head)

People say that the how you draw the face oftentimes can make or break your illustration, and that is mostly true. We recognize a person over another through his face, and see what they feels with their expression. Because of this, drawing the Human Head beautifully is of utmost importance when drawing.

When learning to draw the human head, it is important to have the skill of simplifying it first into basic shapes, a spherical mass for the cranium and a box shape for the jaw. Simplifying the head will allow you to look at the drawing on a larger scale, measure the proportions right, use perspective properly, and shade/render them accordingly.

Expected Topics Include:

Mass Conception of the Head
Head Proportions
Drawing Facial Features
Drawing Hair
Facial Anatomy + Expressions

Recommended Books and Resources:

Drawing the Head and the Hands

Figure Drawing Design and Invention

Artist Guide on Facial Expressions

Proko Portrait Drawing Fundamentals

2. Figure Drawing (Drawing the Body)

Drawing the Human Figure can be intimidating at first because of its complexity, but once you have the skill of simplifying each part first into basic shapes, the challenge becomes much easier, approachable and achievable.

You might be sick of hearing this at this point but it is of utmost importance of having the skill of seeing objects into simplified shapes (mass conception). This will be the constant theme in learning how to draw, as it allows you to tackle a seemingly complex object into something more manageable. This skill will be used not only for the human figure but to any object imaginable, both organic and mechanical.

Expected Topics Include:

Gesture
Mannequinization
Body Proportions
Measurement
Applying Perspective to Figure
Shading/Coloring the Figure

Recommended Books and Resources:

Figure Drawing for All its Worth

Vilppu Drawing Manual: Figure

Figure Drawing Design and Invention

3. Human Anatomy (for Artists)

We cannot draw what we do not know, so it’s pretty much important to know the things we are drawing or else we will end up drawing something that isn’t up to par with our vision.

This is why we need to learn anatomy, as it will give us a reference on our designs. Knowing Anatomy will help us figure out whatever we did right/wrong in our figure, and helps us draw from imagination.

Expected Topics Include:

Human Skeletal System
More Extentive Landmarks of the Body
Origin and Insertion of Superficial and some Deep Muscles
Fat Pads

Recommended Books and Resources:

Simblet
Goldfinger
ImagineFX
Anatomy for Sculptors

4. Drapery

After all this time, we are only drawing naked people, and at some point, we gotta clothe them right? Using the foundations built with figure drawing and anatomy, we can study drapery and how drapes interact with the underlying shapes of the figure.

Expected Topics Include:

Stretch and Compress
Anatomy of Folds
Fold Types
Garments
Movement

Recommended Books and Resources:
Cliff Young
Drawing People
Of course, various Fashion, Historical, Cultural and Modern Clothing References.

C. Many Other things

When you finish the fundamental subjects above, you can now confidently go to the venture that you want! As you become fundamentally solid skill, mindset and knowledge wise, it will be a smoother transition to whatever art department you want to venture. You might venture with many of them depending on your project or tastes, and it’s okay. We should be lifelong learners anyway!

1. Traditional Painting with different mediums

When learning drawing, you are trained to emphasize shapes and values first, and that’s for a reason. Once you get that basics down, the usual next step is to go to learn painting and dealing with color, and with that, possibilities explode that it can be overwhelming if you do not have the basics down. With painting, you will extensively use your color theory along with other things previously learned when drawing. You will also get familiarized with different paint mediums (primarily acrylics, oils and watercolor) and learn skills like paint mixing.

2. Animal Drawing

Of course, not everytime we will draw a human. There will be times where we will draw our animal companions alongside our figure, or even human/animal hybrids. If you are well versed with the skills and knowledge gained with Drawing the Human Figure and Human Anatomy, learning to draw animals gets easier, as you apply the same principle of simplifying the animal figure with basic shapes, and the anatomy of animals can be surprisingly related to the human anatomy!

3. Vehicle Designs and Architecture

Not everything you will draw and paint will be organic, especially when you are doing sci-fi. You will oftentimes draw buildings and cars, ships, planes, and even robots. Practicing drawing these will gain you extensive drafting skills and good sense of design. These will put your perspective skills to the test!

4. Fashion

It’s good to learn to draw clothed people, but it will be more appealing to draw people in better looking clothes. This will apply many skills you gained in figure drawing (including gesture and drapery, and to some extent, hairstyles). All the options you have are infinite! From old times to modern fashion, from each country with different cultures and fashion, you can study them and make inspired characters with dazzling design!


5. Landscape Art

Many people love Landscape Painting, as there is nothing more relaxing than going to a place and painting nature. When doing Landscape Painting, you can create settings that set moods like peacefulness, colorfulness, dullness or gloom. Creating those settings are important even if you are not a full pledge landscape artist!

6. General Science for Artists

When you want to venture into animation, it’s important to learn a little bit of Physics to have a reference of what works in reality. Having that reference/guide of what happens for real will enable us to have a parameter when exaggerating. We can make movements stick to realistic or we can go Dragon Ball Z if we like depending on what do we want to portray. Even if you are not animating, it’s still a good thing to study Physics to make dynamic and moving poses believable.

Expected Topics Include:
More Extensive Color Theory
Mechanics (Movement)
Illusions

Recommended Books and Resources:

7. 2D Animation

Now, as you have the proper knowledge of movement, the problem comes in on how will it be expressed in a 2D medium. With animating, you will learn the concept of animation through rapid succession of drawings called frames. And you will learn efficient ways to draw dynamic movement, from key frames and in betweens.

8. Comics and Manga

Of course, each of us want to draw on a particular style. Some will want to draw Comics, and some will want to draw Manga. Despite that, it’s still important to draw realistic at first so we will have a good reference (The real world). When we have that reference, we will be able to decipher what looks believable and why is it believable. With that foundational knowledge, we can see that each style (whether it’s cartoons, caricatures, comics or manga) is just a stylized version of what we see in reality, and it will enable us to make sound judgments when drawing. When we get that foundation, we can easily go to a favored style quite easily.

Aside from stylization, if you plan to actually make strips, you need to learn proper organization and composition of your strips and speech balloons, planning your setting, and general writing skills, among with other things, with the goal of readability, beauty, storytelling and expression in mind.

Recommended Books and Resources:

9. 3D Modeling/Sculpting

Cause why not? The 3D medium is general have great advantages in animation and film over 2D animation, but it also requires different physical skillset. Don’t let the skillset requirement stop you from learning it! 3D Art can also be used to enhance your 2D drawings and illustrations! Yes, 3D software requires different physical skillset compared to drawing, but the foundational skills is still there, like mass conception, color theory, and anatomy. 2D and 3D as a medium have advantages and disadvantages, and it’s good to diversify our skillset!

Expected Topics Include:

3D Modeling
Texturing
Rigging

Recommended Books and Resources:

III. Resources!



A. Video Tutorials/Livestreams



B. Books



C. Art Models



Posting Guidelines

Because of the Nature of the Materials itself, it can be avoidable to have links that are NSFW. This is why it's important to mark whatever nude or glamour related links as NSFW and decribe fully what's in the link.
 
I feel like the three people in the background are too small...

Nope - the people in the foreground are too large.


The lines go to the vanishing point which I calculated from the perspective of the building. The top line is ruled from the VP to the furthest' figure's head, then extrapolated to where the closest figures are standing. The second line is ruled from the VP to the pelvis of the furthest figure, then extrapolated likewise.

Everyone in the image is assumed to be standing on the same flat plane, but the figures nearest to the camera are not on this shared plane, causing the perspective to not look correct. You've done a good job drawing the background in perspective though, which is why that effect is compelling! :D

My drawing for today - a rough for a concept I'm simply calling "Ryu on a Scottish bus".

 
Nope - the people in the foreground are too large.



The lines go to the vanishing point which I calculated from the perspective of the building. The top line is ruled from the VP to the furthest' figure's head, then extrapolated to where the closest figures are standing. The second line is ruled from the VP to the pelvis of the furthest figure, then extrapolated likewise.

Everyone in the image is assumed to be standing on the same flat plane, but the figures nearest to the camera are not on this shared plane, causing the perspective to not look correct. You've done a good job drawing the background in perspective though, which is why that effect is compelling! :D

My drawing for today - a rough for a concept I'm simply calling "Ryu on a Scottish bus".
I was worried about that >.>

I liked how the two in front turned out but I guess playing with it wouldn't hurt. Gonna mess with it in Photoshop before outright redoing them to get a general idea of how much smaller I need to make them.

Actually the background and those 3 people look good, the 2 characters in the foreground are what feels out of place. Could just be me though, the artstyle looks a bit different on those 2 versus the background 3.
Yeah, the 3 in the background are still rough and I'll adapt them to match the look of the two in the foreground later today.


Thanks for the feedback, guys!
 
Wednesday: 90s Kid
It was the 90s you wouldn't understand. It donned on me that the Simpsons has the most ridiculous color scheme and that my sense of scale is slightly skewed. Haha
 
Legend it depends on your sensibility but I think these Charles Bargue plates could help you. https://plus.google.com/photos/+ZouUuu/albums/5471538774867871409
You can download them all. The first one is the outline of the basic shape of the eye at different angles. https://plus.google.com/photos/+Zou...5471550010831468386&oid=104620822473004383244

There's no secret to it you just want to duplicate the plates in order as best you can.

I'll give them a look in the morning. My issue with the two point perspective image was that I had to redo the two foreground characters and that was rather difficult cause the image on paper is relatively small and the characters were fairly small to begin with. Making already tiny things even smaller isn't the easiest thing to do >.>

The other one I was just goofing off with so I'm not concerned with it :3
 
10391042_794988297248869_2238482000901397260_n.jpg


Started my new sketchbook off by trying to theme each page, this one being inspired by my love for stuff like the strain, true detective and hannibal. I'm finding it so difficult tog et inspiration of what to draw though!
 
I'll give them a look in the morning. My issue with the two point perspective image was that I had to redo the two foreground characters and that was rather difficult cause the image on paper is relatively small and the characters were fairly small to begin with. Making already tiny things even smaller isn't the easiest thing to do >.>

The other one I was just goofing off with so I'm not concerned with it :3

I think the main believability issue with your image is that even though the environment is in perspective, all the people aren't! And by that, I mean that you can see the top of the counter almost from a 3/4 overhead view, but all your people are from the side. So they look 2d in a 3d world. Also I think the guy on the bottom left needs to be a lot bigger probably.

You maybe have to use a less overhead perspective or try to make your figures from a more overhead angle? You kind of chose a very difficult angle to go with! lol
I am pretty terrible with trying to apply perspective stuff though, so my critique might be off, but that's what I feel in my gut!
 
I think the main believability issue with your image is that even though the environment is in perspective, all the people aren't! And by that, I mean that you can see the top of the counter almost from a 3/4 overhead view, but all your people are from the side. So they look 2d in a 3d world. Also I think the guy on the bottom left needs to be a lot bigger probably.

You maybe have to use a less overhead perspective or try to make your figures from a more overhead angle? You kind of chose a very difficult angle to go with! lol
I am pretty terrible with trying to apply perspective stuff though, so my critique might be off, but that's what I feel in my gut!

actually, yeah, I can see that, at least with the two characters in the foreground they were done in the wrong angle and don't fit, gonna play around with it some more

edit: Updated


I think it looks a bit better... Also, I really need to move on from this one already >.>
 
Yeah, I think it looks better!
Haha, you're right. Moving on is probably best. Better to keep the changes you would have wanted to make in mind and work on a new image than keep fiddling with something old!

I drew this today as part of a villain collab:
villain_power_kayne_by_meibatsu-d8iska0.png

~2 hours?
Kayne's a hacker and mechanical expert sidekick to her employer, Miss Candy.

Full collab slowly being filled here: http://atey.deviantart.com/art/Villain-power-514488869
 
DEATH™;152143139 said:
Are you guys down if I make a new OT for starting art/drawing? I really think it would be helpful to have an OT with first post about how to start/books to buy/resources to have/tips to improve...

Not sure if you've seen this thread before, but it was helpful for new artists to establish some basics complete with weekly exercises.

I'd like to see something like this if possible.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=438626
 
Friday: Suddenly Kanda
My love for musicals and Yullen (Yu Kanda/Allen Walker) finally meet. I had a lot of fun drawing Linali, Road, and Miranda as the singing girls in the background. The hardest part was drawing the kiss because drawing kissing is hard for me.
 
Been only working on my serious style, and have neglected my cartoony style for a long time. Rectified with this doodle as I was waiting for something.

I need to make this a habit; taking breaks by drawing goofy stuff so I don't feel frustrated or bored with my main art.
 
Starting to actually fully sketch things out before diving into the line art, it's fun and is certainly alot easier to fix mistakes at this point rather than having to edit multiple layers later on :|


There's still much to fix but I'm too tired
 
Saturday:Tengen Toppa Steven Universe (Pierce the Heavens Steven Universe?)
Gurren Lagann x Steven Universe. The mecha is modeled after the statue near Steven and the Gem’s house.

Last day of illustration bender (back to comics again)
 
Newest (from today) to oldest (two week ago).

Just some quick sketches of anthro characters.

tumblr_nk7ds2RICa1s5zvkco3_r1_500.jpg

(20 minutes)
tumblr_njsngl7Qax1s5zvkco1_1280.jpg

(30 minutes)
tumblr_njjr04St971s5zvkco2_1280.jpg

(20 minutes)
Still trying to figure out anatomy and a personal style, haha.
 
Inspired by a friend's Princess Tutu fanart (Or Rue + Mythos) -- but I didn't know that. I thought she just put our characters in costumes. Haha!
So I just.. kinda did that myself! Plus some Utena and maybe Sailormoon inspo!
Yeah, they are both dudes in this, but you can pretend the one in the dress is a female if you want. >___>

love_is_a_weapon_by_meibatsu-d8j996x.png

Cheesy poem because cool!

Detail:
love_is_a_weapon___detail_by_meibatsu-d8j99jj.png


Around 7 hours? :I
 
Fanart for my friends who are working on a major comic project that should be coming out sometime this year probably!

X Manic's Portia and her guardian angel, Maggie.
scaled_full_0cbe37059e2566c0b08d.png


Detail in jaggedy glory:
tumblr_nkarvxPu1r1qh3iwzo1_1280.png


~5 hours.
 
hi artists of neogaf, I've been browsing this thread a lot lately and I was wondering if anyone could share how they achieved their skills. I'm an aspiring artist as well, but nowhere near as good as anyone who's posted here, so I was wondering how you guys started out.


Thanks, and sorry if this shouldn't be posted here.
 
hi artists of neogaf, I've been browsing this thread a lot lately and I was wondering if anyone could share how they achieved their skills. I'm an aspiring artist as well, but nowhere near as good as anyone who's posted here, so I was wondering how you guys started out.


Thanks, and sorry if this shouldn't be posted here.

Draw, draw, draw and studies. It takes time and dedication, but thanks to the internet it's become a lot easier, like DEATH's topic-to-be above is pretty perfect for aspiring artists. And this topic is great to just post your stuff and stay motivated; it certainly helped me.
I started out by just doodling and drawing all the time since I was a babby. Only within recent months did I finally start to study and focus instead of just winging everything. Just draw what you love and have that drive to get better, and it'll happen.

-Did some sketchy fan art of Spider Gwen
 
hi artists of neogaf, I've been browsing this thread a lot lately and I was wondering if anyone could share how they achieved their skills. I'm an aspiring artist as well, but nowhere near as good as anyone who's posted here, so I was wondering how you guys started out.


Thanks, and sorry if this shouldn't be posted here.

There's no shortcut but to draw a loooot! But I've been doing it for like 25 years now??? lol (I've drawn and doodled since I was 5 and never stopped).
Everyone learns at their own pace though, some faster than others in different areas, but the focus should be on learning and improving and enjoying yourself (no use if you can't have guilty pleasure art!).
It is also normal to hit "plateaus" where you won't see any improvements for a long time (even years!?). But it's also normal to suddenly get better out of nowhere or some studying just through absorbing more information in your everyday life about how things look, how you want them to look, and even just "art mood".
For me, I'm particularly lazy and should study more, because I always improve in good spurts when I do but yeah.. questionable motivation and impatience. xD

Speaking of guilty pleasure art!!!
My OC Altaire as a Flight Rising dragon, which I am trying to breed (it's like dragon Neopets LOL).
tumblr_nkczk1VDeN1qh3iwzo1_1280.jpg

~1 hour.
 
I used a Melyssa Ford photo as a reference. I gave up after 30 minutes lol. It would have taken me 3 hours on that damn Huion H610 tablet though, never digital drawing again.

HMaNwI6.jpg
 
^ Give up to try on a new drawing is the way to go! XD
Drawing on a tablet takes a lot of practice. I owned and kind of tried to use one for years unsuccessfully until I could get the hang of it to finally make sketches. It's better if the drawing surface is bigger though!

One more.. dragon dude.. >___>
I am ill with cold + lightheaded headacheyness so I am drawing these, it seems.

tumblr_nkd8fhURbA1qh3iwzo1_r2_1280.png


~ 1 hour
 
Haha yeah! My life felt saved when I figured how to use multiply so I could colour underneath the lineart! Those were the days~!

Oh gosh yeah. They look like an odd creepy couple! Longneck bunny starts looking more like a kangaroo or llama lol.

And because I apparently draw more while I'm sick..
Heimdl's brother in dragon gijinka form:

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Another hour? Maybe around 40 minutes actually? lol

EDIT: OKAY LAST OEN I SWEAR
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~ 1 hour!
 
I'm working on a pretty cool new pet project which involves drawing kids as superheroes that they've created. I decided to do something outside of my wheelhouse for this - do the drawings entirely in Illustrator. Well, mostly, the initial sketch is still done in Sketchbook Pro. This has been a fun learning experience since, despite having spent 5.5 years in art college, I know very little about Illustrator. Man that Live Paint tool...what a freaking Godsend. It saves so much time it's not even funny.

These are the first two illustrations so far. They're more or less just test runs as I learn the ins and outs of creating an illustration entirely in Illustrator. They're a tad rough, but I'm giving myself some slack. The vector approach to painting is still a bit weird to me, but oddly enjoyable.


They're not completed just yet - the boy is going to have lightning shooting out of his finger and the girl's hands are going to be on fire. But overall I'm pretty happy with the results. They'll definitely improve as I get more comfortable with the process.

Also, thank Jesus for YouTube tutorials.
 
^ I don't think I could ever withstand trying to actually work in illustrator. It seems helpful for some graphic design stuff but don't think I could handle doing actual sketching and stuff in there haha. Good luck with your project!

I am still in the worst art slump I've had in like, years. It's awful

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:/ maybe I'll paint it or something
 
A little off topic, but does anyone know of any good facebook groups to get crits or just see/post wips? I used to use Lunchcrunch but since it has shut down I'm just wondering if anyone knows of any other groups that are actually decent.
 
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